La La Land Brings Old School Hollywood Into Beautiful New Light

Director: Damien Chazelle Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone Running Time: 128 minutes   Having been subjected to months of hype and subsequently inevitable backlash, it has been almost impossible to go into La La Land without expectations being shaped one way or another. Is it truly the greatest thing since sliced bread, is it a musical for people who don’t…

Who Truly Suffers In Silence?

Director: Martin Scorsese Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Yōsuke Kubozuka, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Shinya Tsukamoto, Issey Ogata Running Time: 159 minutes It will be interesting to see the Irish reception to Silence, a film about struggling with the Catholic faith that’s been mulling around in the head of Martin Scorsese for some 25 years. Though it’s oppression of the Church rather than by it that…

Assassin’s Creed Can’t Break The Video Game Curse

Directed by: Justin Kurzel Starring: Michael Fassbender,  Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson Running Time: 116 mins Video game to film adaptations don’t have a great track record. With a solid cast, an exciting premise, and a promising director on board Assassin’s Creed aimed to change all that. Those involved claimed they would be giving us the world’s…

Passengers Is A Profoundly Uncomfortable Experience

Directed by: Morten Tyldum  Starring: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen  Running Time: 116 mins Passengers is not the nice romantic sci-fi film you’ve been led to believe. What’s disconcerting is that it thinks it is. Thanks to a horribly misguided plot development in the first act of the movie Passengers is a film so…

Dogs and Dads: Male Melodrama in The Force Awakens

With Rogue One out this week, I decided to take a look back at last year’s Star Wars offering, The Force Awakens. While both new Star Wars films have been both celebrated and attacked for championing ‘minority’ characters, they’re still very much focused on Fathers and the passing on of power, which shows that patrilineage is still king. Patrilineage means the ways…

Your Name Is Beautiful And Complex Animation

Director: Makoto Shinkai Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi Running Time: 107 minutes After a year with two Disney films and a Pixar sequel, it’s going to be difficult for other animated features to distinguish themselves either in the hearts of the viewing public or in the ballots of voters during the busy awards season. Your Name, an anime film by…

Kinopolis 2016: Love, Actually, Is Not Around In United States Of Love

Director: Tomasz Wasilewsi Starring: Julie Kijowska, Marta Nieradkiewicz, Magdalena Cielecka, Dorota Kolak Running Time: 104 minutes The theme of the 2016 Kinopolis Polish Film Festival is love and the many faces that love can have. The opening film of this year’s festival, Tomasz Wasilewski’s United States of Love sees love manifested in less heart-warming forms. It…

It’s Peter Parker’s Time To Pretend In Spider-Man: Homecoming Trailer

As you may already know from your various social media platforms blowing up this morning, or from having watched the teaser to the trailer in the matryoshka doll that is modern movie marketing, the first glimpse of Spider-Man: Homecoming was shown last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Your favourite part of Captain America: Civil War is…